In August 2013, during Evanescence's hiatus, guitarist Troy McLawhorn was interviewed by Munib Nawaz from Radio1 FM 91 Pakistan.

The interview lasted for more than 47 minutes, but at 26:40 Troy told us that before Evanescence's tour manager (Andrew Weiss) called him to fill in for John LeCompt who left in 2007, he was doing a construction work in Miami.

He said that he couldn't find any job in Atlanta, so he became a construction worker to build a mall in Miami. When Evanescence called him, he was very excited.

He had to learn 20+ songs from Evanescence in a short time, but since he grew up playing in bands where he played cover songs, he didn't really have a hard time doing it.

When Evanescence was on hiatus in 2013, Amy Lee tweeted that she was going to a friend's concert in New York City, but didn't tell the fans who the friend was. Turned out that she went to Halestorm's concert and performed another duet with vocalist Lzzy Hale in the song "Break In".

Evanescence's Troy McLawhorn was performing with Dave Ellefson (Megadeth), Pete Murray and Neil Godfrey (Lo-Pro), and Sal G (Staind). The song was performed during a benefit gig for the Battlefield of the Mind, a documentary about the details of what homeless U.S. military veterans in Afghanistan and Iraq go through including PTSD or post-traumatic
stress disorder leaving afflicted veterans in a downward spiral after
returning home from war.

Musicians Joining the "Battlefield of the Mind" Benefit Gig

Troy contributed to the soundtrack in the songs "Wake of War" and "Not Like You".

Troy had just got back home after touring with Sevendust to fill in for Clint Lowery for 3 weeks while Evanescence was still on hiatus. He said that they did 16 shows in 19 days, so he got sick after that.

This is a short video recorded by Will Hunt when he was recording with Evanescence in 2011. In this video he is showing you the
drum kit - priced $10,000 according to him. The self-titled album was recorded in the Black Bird Studio in Nashville, and it was
produced by the Grammy-winning Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Deftones, Stone Sour, Rush, etc).

He also uploaded a video of him playing the drums for The Other Side:

While he uploaded the videos to the fans in Easter 2013, he was working with Device with Disturbed's frontman David Draiman as Evanescence was still on hiatus.